There is no such thing as ‘right-wing populism’: Reclaiming the emancipatory potential of populism in reactionary times

Abstract Populism has become generally equated with far-right politics in public discourse. Beyond this association being widely problematised in much of the literature on populism, in this theoretical intervention, we argue that the populist label is ill-fitting for far-right politics for three reasons. First, any antagonism of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’ is only secondary, at best, for the far right. Second, while populism constructs an anti-elitist crisis of the system, the far right constructs a crisis in the system, seeking to (re-)entrench elite rule and systems of oppression. Third, populism transgresses hegemonic political norms by making a novel political subject visible, whereas the far right attempts to extend the privilege of its already privileged voting base. As such, we argue that we should abandon the ‘populist’ signifier to refer to reactionary politics and instead rely on more precise, but also more stigmatising signifiers such as far/radical/extreme right for projects of reactionary people-building. Whereas populism builds a coalition through equivalential links between the demands of ‘the people’, such demands are of little concern for reactionary elites. Instead, ‘the people’ are constructed to lend legitimacy to their elitist project. While there are clear risks in attempting to reclaim the concept considering its quasi-hegemonic misuse, we argue that the emancipatory potential of populism makes it worthy of serious investigation in our demophobic and authoritarian times.